The 2026 Mazda MX-5 Cup season came to a close a few weeks ago, but for BSI Racing owner Shea Holbrook, the finale at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta represented the culmination of nearly two decades of work in motorsports.
Bobby Gossett, in just his second season in the series, clinched his first MX-5 Cup championship at Road Atlanta, delivering a long-awaited title for BSI Racing and its owner, a former sportscar driver who had spent much of her own career chasing that same achievement.
For Holbrook, the championship meant more than a trophy. It represented years of investment, sacrifice and belief in the team she had built, making Gossett’s title-winning performance an especially meaningful milestone.
“My entire career, almost 20 years of doing this and not winning a championship myself,” Holbrook said. “Buying a race team — stupidest, smartest decision anybody could ever make.
“Putting everything on the line, my family putting everything on the line, risking everything, building this platform and building this team in the Mazda MX-5 Cup. Having my children in the series, literally living and breathing with Mazda, is a dream come true.
“We’ve come close twice. We’ve lost it twice by basically one car position or one point. And to have Bobby — if you told me at the beginning of the year that we were going to win this championship, I might have scratched my head.
“To have him not just finish on the top step of the podium yesterday, but to win it today and to win $250,000, hopefully to invest back in the Mazda, it’s like a dream come true for BSI. This is truly what BSI was built for.”
While the championship fulfilled a long-standing ambition for Holbrook, it also marked a breakthrough for Gossett, whose path to the title was shaped by a change in mindset and growing confidence behind the wheel.
After joining BSI Racing, Gossett secured his first series victory early in the season at St. Petersburg. A third-place finish at Daytona also helped build his confidence, laying the foundation for a championship-winning campaign.
Looking back on the difference between his first and second seasons in MX-5 Cup, Gossett credited his mentality and willingness to race more aggressively.
“I think just mentality,” said Gossett. “There’s a lot of mental stuff when it comes to MX-5 Cup, just being confident in yourself and being aggressive. I think that kind of just switched.
“Also, we changed teams. BSI is great. But I think, driver-wise and mentality-wise, we were quick last year at Road Atlanta, right here. But we just weren’t confident enough in the race, weren’t aggressive enough. We let people go by that shouldn’t have gone by.
“So it was honestly just a switch. I think getting third at Daytona in that race, which is kind of more of a luck track, gave us more confidence. I think if that hadn’t happened, this year could have gone way differently.”
For Holbrook, Gossett’s championship was also validation of BSI Racing’s broader mission: developing drivers who can succeed in the series before progressing to opportunities elsewhere in motorsports.
After coming close to the title on two previous occasions, the championship provided tangible proof of what the team had been working toward, while reinforcing the value of its development program.
“I think finally we can say the proof is in the pudding, in the sense that we can do it and we can win,” Holbrook said. “We’ve been so close, and it’s slipped through our fingers just by things not happening. I mean, I think everybody knows what we’re capable of.
“We have Connor Zilisch, who came through our program, and he’s at the top level of NASCAR right now. There’s a long list of names. Weston Workman this weekend won the VP Racing Sportscar Challenge championship with his team, RAFA Racing, which I’m super proud of. He also won the scholarship, so he’s going on to big things.
“And this is what it means to be BSI built. A lot of people talk about development, and I think every team here is strong. I’ve lost to all of them many times. Today, we come out on top, and I’m grateful for that.
“But at the end of the day, we put drivers not just through our program, where they do well and excel, but they’re also aligned with Mazda and other manufacturers to continue to move on. I think that’s what makes us really special.”
